February 5, 2010

Imagine up to 100 dirty diesel trucks per day sitting with their engines running for an hour pumping out unhealthy particles over a city. Here's a story from Hempstead, New York.

November 2009. Hempstead, NY:

officials of Covanta indicated that during peak hours, the trucks waiting to deliver garbage to the plant must wait at least an hour, during which time their diesel engines cannot be shut off.

the stack is monitored only once a year by the State, the rest of the time the testing is done by an “independent” monitoring company paid by Covanta.

And imagine this in Poolbeg where air pollution standards have already been exceeded. With the Financial Regulator or FAS doing de regulating. Perhaps cleaner trucks will be used in Dublin and not just promised. Perhaps effective and truly independent pollution monitoring will be done and reported in real time on-line. This has not yet been decided, despite the spin initially presented at the DCC/RPS/Covanta "open day" in Dublin.

On November 19th and 20th, 2009 Covanta hosted an information session on its proposed expansion of the plant in Westbury, New York. The exhibition consisted of various boards produced by Covanta outlining its proposal to expand the plant and basically, how wonderful it will be for the Town of Hempstead. Clearly the session was designed with the purpose of downplaying any potential concerns regarding the expansion of the plant.

Conversations with plant officials were informative since in order to oppose the expansion project, we must be knowledgable as what Covanta is actually proposing. For example, the officials of Covanta indicated that during peak hours, the trucks waiting to deliver garbage to the plant must wait at least an hours, during which time their diesel engines cannot be shut off.When asked how this problem can be solved, the officials advised that they expect that all garbage trucks can be converted to natural gas fuel.

When questioned about alternate entrances, we were told that if traffic signals are placed on Merchants Concourse, then the Department of Transportation has advised that the alternate Stewart Avenue entrance is not an option. If for some reason the expansion is approved, there would be no trucks running north of the plant on Merchants Concourse, but no other entrance for ingress and egress on Stewart Avenue. Also interesting is the fact that the stack is monitored only once a year by the State, the rest of the time the testing is done by an “independent” monitoring company paid by Covanta.

While Covanta officials feel their science is accurate and that they have the solutions to all the issues brought up by comments to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, it is clear that a) the science is flawed and b) the solutions are not in the best interest of the community.

The accompanying pages have links to various organizations and treatises on how the emissions from the plant are damaging to our health. One topic of considerable note is the effect of nano particles on our health. There is an excellent link on the side panel that describes what nano particles are, with graphs, illustrations and charts and how they effect our health.

What you will find is that the smaller the particle, the less chance it has of being trapped at the plant and more chance it has to make its way into your bloodstream. The larger the particle, the more chance it has of being trapped at the plant or being expelled from your airway at the upper part of the respiratory track. Once in your bloodsream, the potential effects on your health are at least, not good. So, please do not be taken in by claims that the plant expansion is not going to affect your health. Charts and risk assessments are only that, they are guesses as to what will happen. If we are going to guess what is going to happen, perhaps the guess should be made on the safe side, not on the side that makes Covanta millions.